Hiding In Your Eyes
by Daniel Jasper
Summary: Snape finds fifteen-year old Harry Potter in the park located in Little Whinging. Thinking the boy is up to mischief he intends to confront said trouble-maker and lecture him on the meaning of keeping one 'safe and out of harm's way'. What he finds is a little more disconcerting. [Abuse]
1. Lily's Eyes

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters.

**A/N: **This is one of my first attempts at a third-person fanfiction piece. Snape finds fifteen-year old Harry Potter in the park located in Little Whinging. Thinking the boy is up to mischief he intends to confront said trouble-maker and lecture him on the meaning of keeping one 'safe and out of harm's way'. What he finds is a little more disconcerting.

**Warnings: **Self-harm and a suicide attempt of sorts.

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**Chapter 1**: Lily's Eyes

Dew had crept upon Harry Potter, kissing his all too pale cheeks that were illuminated by a streetlamp light. His once jet-black hair was dull and damp at the same time –splayed haphazardly across his forehead in a distressed fashion.

Severus, who had been hiding in the shadows for the past half an hour –waiting for the fifteen-year old boy to make the slightest of movements, stepped forward impatiently to get a closer look at the limp form.

Harry had been lying in the uncut and unkempt grass of Little Whinging Park located in the midst of Private Drive, seemingly staring at the stars for who knows how long and it was beginning to irritate him.

'_Sure the brat had just lost his mutt of a godfather, but it gave him no reason to act so foolishly and risk his hide when he was already facing so much adversity from the outside world',_ Severus thought.

Reaching Harry's body in a short manner of strides, his normal emotionless mask fell, leaving a horrified expression in its wake. He dropped shakily to his knees and was tempted to stretch an arm out and gently brush some loose strands out of the anguished teen's face, but he stops himself short of actually touching Harry.

Somehow it felt wrong to Severus. After all the animosity and loathing he had harboured over the years against the boy, against his father, it just didn't feel right to comfort something that had obviously been hiding a lot of pain that he clearly didn't feel comfortable expressing –with anyone. _'If that had been the case Harry wouldn't be in this mess,'_ Severus's mind quickly quips, _'and surely I would not have been the one sent to check up on him.'_ He added to his rambling thoughts.

The dark-cloaked professor notices a small ragged piece of cloth is tangled around Harry's body, weaving its way desperately through his fragile fingers, and barely shielding him from the distant cold of the night. The young teen was clothed in an old pair of tattered jeans and a worn grey shirt that looked far too big for his slight frame. This was the first thing that had unsettled Severus, but it was defiantly not the last.

Harry's feet were bare –no sign of shoes, or socks for that matter, anywhere, and were covered in dirt, with bits of shattered glass crushed into each foot. This, however, did not distract the man from the condition the rest of the boy's body lay in. Bruises of varying healing stages adorned both arms, and one sickly purple one obscured at least half of his face, darkening around the right eye and bleeding into his temples.

That wasn't the worst of it as Severus soon became aware. The teen's shirt had been pulled up to one side, revealing long faded red lines that looked, as if –given the chance, would heal to thick, dark, ugly scars. Seeing this, the professor loses all sense of his propriety and decorum and pulls the silent, pathetic, lifeless form into his tired arms.

The boy's emerald eyes stare up at Severus.

Lily's eyes.

Dull, dilated pupils, make a worthwhile effort in attempting to squash out all the green.

Suddenly, there's a hitch in his throat, and Severus looks away for a moment to, even though there is no one to see, regain his composure. No doubt the man feels the weight of guilt bearing down on him, as he realises he, like many others, who could have done something, that Harry had, for a long time, been miserable, alone and abused.

Severus looks down at Harry again, observing that Lily's green eyes –eyes that used to hold a thousand questions and playful retorts before, were now empty. Hollow and emotionless. He pulls the fifteen-year old closer, wondering when the scent of the boy will be disguised with that of death. Harry's barely breathing, judging by the pulse in his neck... Severus isn't even sure that he'll make it.

He doesn't notice it but tears are starting to drip down his cold cheeks onto Harry's face. Subconsciously, his long fingers reach up and tenderly wipe them away each time a tear threatens to stain the teen's porcelain-like skin. Severus's hand moves slowly to trace the outline of Harry's lips. He presses his own against the boy's, hoping to breathe some life into him. Sadly, Harry remains unmoving, unattached to anything anymore.

Meaninglessness fills Severus's body, as he understands that this is the second time he'll have to witness a loved one's death. He knows that the boy he is holding in his arms isn't actually Lily, but tonight Harry resembles more of his mother in every way than he had ever resembled his bully of a father, James.

"_The day you died, you took me with you Lily." _He whispers into the night, still watching the weak teen in his arms.

Ominous to drop the boy sorrowfully to the ground again –leaving his side to call for help, a crimson covered piece of metal catches his dark eyes. Gently cradling Harry's small hands in his own, he unclenches them. Running a fingertip down from his wrist to the crook of his elbow, are several raised lesions –each deeper until they cease at the palm of the frail hand. Clasped in the boy's left hand, Severus can see the cause to this tragedy. It makes him sick to his stomach to think that Harry had to resort to such coping methods when- when he could have...

He stops, swallowing guiltily.

He should have been there to protect the boy.

From the very beginning.

"I'm so sorry Harry."

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**A/N: **This'll probably be left as a one-shot unless there's a vast outcry for me to continue with this random line of thought. Review and tell me what you think –I could totally morph this into a multi-chapter story if you want... Just say the words!

It does seem like a fair amount of you DO want me to continue with this one-shot... So my question to you fellow readers is: Do you want Harry to LIVE or DIE? Please give me your opinion in a **review**. The quicker I get a fair response, the quicker I'll load another chapter.


	2. Waking Up

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters.

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**Chapter 2**: Waking Up

Bright, whitewashed light spilled into the small room, illuminating Severus's face –what would normally be adorned with a dark snarl, but was now pale and covered with bruise-like patches beneath his eyelids. He was seated upright in a navy wicker chair, his head leaning at an odd angle so that a curtain of his greasy hair blocked all but a small portion of his face away from view.

Beside Severus, in a tiny make-shift bed, lay a frame of a body... Thin arms that twisted around pale cotton sheets of a boy who hadn't woken for almost two days since Severus had found him that night in the park in Little Whinging. Something that deeply concerned the professor. He had waited countless hours, never leaving the room unless to use the bathroom, and foregoing food altogether, in hopes that he would be present when the boy woke. No such luck. Not yet anyway...

A soft moan escaped Harry's lips, and in the expansive silence Severus opened his heavy eyelids to see the boy's face drawing into an expression of pain as he struggled against some inner demon. Drawing in a deep breath, the tired man tried to gently shake Harry and call him by his namesake for, probably, the twelfth time in the last couple of days, in effort to wake him.

When that obviously doesn't seem to work, and Harry's moans turned to desperate whimpers as he thrashes about against the sheets covering him, Severus decides enough is enough. It was time to attempt some more drastic measures.

He lifts himself off the uncomfortable chair he had been seated in for the past four hours, and wobbles towards the water damaged door. Not eating had evidently muddled slightly with his co-ordination, and only by catching the brass doorknob did he not fall completely to the wooden floor altogether.

Once Severus managed to quietly peel the oak-wood door open, he makes his way slowly, but still gracefully to the bathroom that was situated just outside of the small room –_Harry's room_ –and eyed a steel pail that was hiding underneath the tank of the toilet.

Not getting so far as to at least fill the metal bucket to the halfway mark, Severus dropped the entire pail into the large porcelain basin when piercing screams began to resound off the walls, making the small hairs on the back of his head stand on end. He shivered, trying to shake the unpleasant feeling.

_Harry. _

Leaving the pail, and hastening to get to the boy's side, the professor didn't notice the loose floorboard entering the room again, and promptly fell face first to land splattered across the wooden floor. Cursing himself for this unusual clumsiness, he manages to focus on Harry's tortured screams through the dull ache of a headache encompassing his head, and pulled himself to a standing a position once again so that he could survey Harry.

Before Severus lay a mass, almost certainly covered in something dark. Even in the poor light of the window to the right of Harry's bed, he could make out that underneath the squirming boy the pale cotton sheets had changed colour, to reveal a mess of red. It was blood. The boy was bleeding. Harry had his frail hands pressed up against his forehead, fingernails scratching into the flesh in an attempt to make some imagined pain lesson.

Eventually, the man snapped out of his stunned silence, and made his way quickly to Harry, cloak billowing behind him dramatically and grasped the weak boy's hands into his own, preventing Harry from succeeding in gouging out any more of the skin on his forehead. He had finely stopped screaming, and now just haggard rasps left his lips. But in spite of this, Harry hadn't woken, and he was still fighting viscously for Snape to let go of him.

Taken aback, Severus resorted to earlier tactics. "Harry? It's time to wake up. You've been asleep for long enough now... Wake up."

It was a stupid attempt. The boy did nothing in response; only giving a small twitch like he _might_ have heard Severus. _Might_ was a long-shot, and he wouldn't have it any longer.

"Potter!" Severus growled in frustration.

Vivid green eyes suddenly snapped open, and Severus quickly let his hold of Harry's arms falter. Those eyes, Lily's eyes, were filled with fear, confusion and pain as they darted around the gloomy room and settled on Severus.

"Who's –who's there?" Harry's voice broke; not being able to make out much without his glasses. All that he could see was a large, towering figure that was too reminiscent of-

He was going to be sick.

Leaning over towards his side, Harry wasn't expecting the sharp pain that seared up his back and into his scrawny shoulders. With an anguished gasp, he collapsed onto the bed again, not really taking notice of the fact that he was lying in his own bodily fluids. All he knew was the pain. Pain that tore through his body, and the muffled darkness of unconsciousness. Everything else, all of it, was irrelevant.

Severus swore loudly under his breath, and rubbed wearingly at his tired face.

What on earth was he supposed to do with the boy now?

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**A/N: **It's been a couple of months, being swamped with school and life... But I finally finished my preparatory examinations, so here is your long-awaited second chapter readers. Oh, my goodness Harry lives! **Review** please and tell me what you think. Feedback is always appreciated.


	3. Conversations with the Dead

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters.

**A/N: **Having an extended amount of time to review and edit previous chapters I have been able to add a few **extra details** to Chapters 1 through 2.

Oh, and if you haven't already favourited '**meeka-eela**', do so quickly and **drop her a line** –her laptop crashed last week and I'm not sure when it'll be fixed, so this chapter will remain unedited until further notice.

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**Chapter 3**: Conversations with the Dead

Nearing nearly midnight, when the sun had long ceased to shimmer pathetically through the small window of the room, Harry Potter opened his striking green eyes. And was, for once –_much to Severus' irritated relief_, completely aware of his surroundings.

"Sir..." he croaked, attempting to weakly sit up in the improvised cot when it became clearer to teen now that the professor was the only person in the shabby room with him. Severus lay a pale hand on the child's chest, pushing Harry's small torso back down onto the soiled sheets.

He had made no effort to endeavour to change them, not wanting to disturb the boy's fragmented sleep pattern, and so the blood that seeped from Harry's form, had already crusted onto his scrawny back. No doubt it would be a difficult task to remove his clothes – a demanding task not only for Harry –because of the pain it would bring, but also for Severus, who would struggle to refrain from losing his temper with the boy during the process.

Harry glanced up from his position on the bed, a wave of heated agony just then coursing through his body. Severus, being forever attentive and perceptive, produced a pastel-beige flannel from his cloak pocket and gently wiped the cloth across Harry's sweaty forehead. Cheeks flushing in embarrassment, he opened his mouth to distract himself from the motion, "Where- where exactly are we?"

"We're in a remote safe house Mr. Potter." Severus snipped, not quite meaning to use such a petulant tone. "What your concern should be is not about our current whereabouts but rather getting something nutritious into your frail, damaged body. Tell me Mr. Potter, do you always return to school in such a '_delicate'_ manner? You seem to have barely eaten anything in the past few weeks."

Before the raven-headed boy could even try to form a response, the professor had turned to the small wooden box near the cot, and lifted a tray bearing a bowl of something mushy in appearance that Harry couldn't quite make out, to rest lightly on the boy's bony legs.

A spoonful of –_it smelt like oatmeal_ - reached Harry's pink mouth. Feeling the concentrated pangs of hunger, he didn't decline the offering, doing his utmost best to gulp the slimy porridge down. After the second choking spasm in which Harry made a dismal attempt to stifle, Severus removed the oatmeal and allowed him to sip from a grubby glass of icy water.

"Thank you." Harry's hoarse voice whispered.

Severus nodded after a brief moment of surprised shock, clearly not expecting the gratitude that had left the boy's cracked lips. "Potter," the man carded both hands through his dark, oily hair, taking a deep breath before he, almost unwillingly, continued, "There's something that we need to discuss about the condition I found you in..."

Dim, obsidian eyes watched as a raven-haired boy seemed to curl in on himself, quickly shutting his haunted eyes and pulling tiny hands up to cover his ears. Repeated, soft murmurs of 'no' can be heard in the stuffy air.

Reaching out to place numbed fingers on bare skin –hoping to draw Harry back into the present; Severus was saddened to say that his constitution was unprepared to deal with the rasping winces that came from the boy's twisted mouth, accompanied with the vilely spoken words of 'don't touch me'.

"Harry," the namesake opened his eyes, staring at Severus with brackish tears, "did your uncle do this to you?" the man lent a hand to the present state Harry's body lay in –a fleeting memory of the teen's shirt being pulled up to one side, revealing the same long faded red lines.

"No. No- I-," a stutter response, "I don't wa- want to talk about it." Despite the throbbing pain it would cause him, Harry turned his achy body away from Snape, to stare blankly at a badly done-up wall. The ancient, murky wallpaper pealing in various places.

The professor's eyebrows furrowed in contemplative thought, "Very well," he made to stand, a superficial dusting of his cloak ensued before he glanced down at the cold, abandoned bowl of porridge. "Be sure that you finish that up Mr. Potter. I will not have you wasting away any more than you already have under my watch."

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**A/N: **Final exams are finished! I'm reading fanfiction after a three month waiting period. **Any awesome recommendations you have for me?** I really don't care about the fandom, as long as it's well written.

**Review**! I don't mind what you have to say as long as it's constructive. Next chapter will probably be up within the week, or the month. Maybe a Christmas chapter; I know this story seems kind of depressing and sad right now. I went away with a couple of friends last week to stay in a guest house type thing, from the 30th of November to the 6th of December because we're finished high school! Finished freaking high school! It was one awesome fricking week, so I apologise for not updating sooner. We were really busy **goofing** off, cooking our own food, ripping off badly made movies, talking about random stuff, etc...


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